Wednesday, June 24, 2009

The Over Prepared Boy Scout Strikes Again

Tonight I said to Peanut Head, "Thank you so much for giving me such good material and letting me make fun of you on my blog all the time." He just smiled and nodded his head.

There are advantages to his having an over abundance of self-esteem.

So, that picture of Peanut Head above, that's him all ready for our hike a few weeks ago. Remember that one? The one that lasted five minutes. Yeah. Well, as you can see, he was packed for a trek on the Appalachian Trail.

I don't know everything that he had in that backpack, but I'm pretty sure all this stuff was in there and then some. It almost makes me want to get lost in the wilderness, just so we can make all the packing and staging worthwhile. I bet he even has some MREs in there somewhere.

What is all this stuff? I don't know about you, but I think I would've tossed a GPS in there. Of course one of the dealie bobs in that mess is probably a compass, but we don't have a working knowledge of that just yet.

I'll explain.

Recently Peanut Head became involved in the Boy Scouts. He has all that pent up Marine Corps knowledge that he likes to knock about, so this is right up his alley. And yes, the Boy Scouts' goal is not to teach the young men how to kill each other in multiple and inventive ways, but they do need to learn survival skills and whatnot. Enter Peanut Head.

This week Peanut Head put together a little Orienteering course in our neighborhood for the Boy Scouts. He gave them each this map and a little Hints key, and they were to find the markers and record the numbers at each marker to prove that they had found them.

So, the boys did that last night and they loved it. Then this evening Peanut Head thought it would be a good idea for the girls and I to find all his markers, while he tagged along and watched amusedly, and we could pick them up at the same time.

Here the girls are, zeroing in on one of the markers.

Except I'm racing them to it because I need a picture of it before they rip it off.

So I knocked them down and got my picture. Hey, anything for the picture. The picture tells the story.

Of course then I did let Stinkerbell peel the marker off.

We didn't want to litter, so we stuck all the tape to Zoe Bug's head for storage. She didn't even notice what we were doing. We just kept smacking her in the head and she was all "HEY! Why'd you do that?!"

Because we love you, Sweetie.

Here's Annika trying to comprehend the compass.

Peanut Head was reading the hints to us, "80 meters on bearing of 200 degrees from blah-blah-blah."

All at once, the girls' and my mouths dropped open and we looked at him like "Say WHAT?"

He may as well have been speaking Greek.

He looks a little exasperated, doesn't he? But it was mixed with amusement and that's the only thing that kept his head from exploding, trust me.

Here he is trying to explain the compass to the girls and asking them leading questions. They were waiting for him to start speaking English.

"Meters? That's like feet, right?"

"No. yards."

"Oopsie."

This compass is taking for-EVER. Give me my GPS and the snotty talking lady that lives in the GPS.

In spite of the obstacles, Peanut Head persevered.

Zoe just had an epiphany. I'm happy to report that she at least, got Peanut Head's navigational genes. He has some pushy genes too, but that's another story for another day.

The verdict's still out on Stinkerbell. At one point she ripped the map out of my hands and tore it in half. She's enthusiastic if nothing else.

Here's Stinkerbell. She took off running in the direction Zoe pointed. She had no idea where she was going, but she was going to beat Zoe there, dang it.

Of course she had to change directions once she saw where Zoe actually headed.

They found it! Criminy, can you tell Peanut Head has a thing for rocks?

This was hilarious. The slappin the tape on her head was pretty funny :) I can just see me doing something like that. Although I don't think I would go a searchin for that stuff...maybe when Wire Nut becomes a boy scout! :)

You've got the story telling ability to tell about all of PH's antics, so you are quite the couple! And you are NORTH of me aren't you? I didn't even need my compass to figure that out. I'd much prefer a GPS anyway! :)

I am hoping and praying that Jayden gets him as a leader when the time comes. That is so cool. He is awesome and we all can learn so much from him. He is a good dude to have around!!!! In fact, I wish some of my girls could have gone on his activity. Some of them have to do a compass orienteering activity to pass off a requirement for girls camp. This would have been awesome. In a mostly joking matter but a tiny bit serious...would you think he would consider recreating and doing a scaled down version for some giggly, crazy girls????

I laughed so hard at your post that I had to read it aloud to my husband. The man who gave his four year old daughter a compass smiled and grunted something in "Marine". If your husband were here, he could probably translate that. Me? Not so much. We've got three girls and my husband already has plans on taking them out to teach them land nav. All the best.

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